Food, gambling, etc. are all backed by hordes of brilliant well paid people trying to get you to ruin your life so they make money. On the other side is just regular people like us stressed out trying to survive.
This isn't some "freedom" issue, it's an incredibly huge power asymmetry and I think "we the people" need protection from these forces
No thank you, I can protect myself.
In many ways you actually cannot, in any reasonable way:
- You cannot escape surveillance unless you completely (and I do mean completely) withdraw from modern society
- You cannot protect yourself from subconscious manipulation by advertising and marketing firms that pay billions of dollars to find and exploit subconscious weaknesses that we all possess
- You cannot protect yourself from sweeping changes made (e.g. to legislation) made in response to the interests of lobbyists or bad actors, and in consequence from changes in the behaviour of others, in response
By learning the techniques they employ, a subconscious manipulation by them, becomes a conscious observation by us. Education defeats these methods. An argument could be made that more money will be spent to continually find deeper subconscious manipulations. I would wager, the ROI would diminish quickly.
I would rather be manipulated by private industry than controlled by government. I cannot out vote a majority, but I can out wit a billboard.
Another way of saying this is that you would rather be controlled through methods which are subtle, novel, and difficult to put a finger on than through methods which are overt and fit traditional narratives of control.